Moving past the confines of typical suburban life

2015 Recap and 2016 Resolutions

The only resolution I feel I fully accomplished was participating in the company wellness program. And on that, I give myself a solid C. Last year was about family, and trying to keep it together while my father-in-law fought Cancer. Fin can fill you in on that, but I’ll summarize the year with “Cancer sucks”.

I’m trying to move on, and what better way to start by posting my usual yearly post.

So, 2016…. here we go:

Consumer Debt Free
No car, auto, credit card, or signature loans. For a stretch, I’d also like to pay off my last remaining student loan.

Get technical blog running again
My technical blog just currently posts a “nothing to see here message”. I’d like to get it going and average 1 post a month. Believe it or not, that blog actually had a regular following and fairly decent traffic.

Build wireless temperature sensor system for greenhouse
Goal here is to get a temperature / humidity read-out and log for Kris. Bonus points if I can get a working weather station reporting conditions to the web and displaying on the sidebar here.

Post another piano recording
I’ve worked on a few really lovely pieces the past few years. I’d like to actual post a recording of something – especially since the equipment is just gathering dust in the closet. It’d be really cool if Fin and I could start a pod-cast too, but that’s not likely this year.

Take an actual vacation
“Actual vacation” is defined here as a minimum of 3 contiguous planned days off from work, not associate with family camping trips, doctors, or family obligations (funeral / wedding ).

Complete an online course
Technical or musical, I don’t care which – but I need to practice life-long learning again!

Learn a web framework (server and browser side)
I might combine this with the previous item. I’d like to become more fluent in building websites, especially as the lack of knowledge on modern web development is the major reason why I haven’t yet built a whizz-bang theme for this site.

Visit at least 2 Kansas City tourist traps
I’ve got a fairly long potential list of tourist traps to visit. I might should add “besides the plaza” here, unless I’m there to visit the art museum. The trick here will be convincing Fin to get out of the house.

Branch out from previous years in a current hobby or find something new altogether
Lately, I’ve realized a steady movement away from “Jack of All Trades” to “Master of a few”. This year, I’d like to actually explore some new things… Maybe drawing, building models, more hardware instead of software based projects, gardening, tinkering… I dunnos.